Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Hand Over Fist by Michael Ross @goddessfish @mikerosswriter

Hand Over Fist

by Michael Ross

GENRE: Thriller

BLURB:

When an old friend disappears, Martin learns nothing is what it seems…

Martin Russell can barely face the future. With dismal life prospects and an estranged family, he is at the end of his rope. When an old friend, Hannah, elbows her way back into his life, Martin’s luck begins to turn around.

Hidden within the shadows of evil, there must be some good…

Ex-policeman Bobby Tanner lost everything one rage-filled night. Now he runs a reading group for alcoholics where he meets a young drug dealer, Zack, who disturbs him in a way that’s hard to define. Bobby soon discovers the teenager is in over his head and has been dealing with a despicable individual known as The Chemist.

The roots of evil run deeper than we imagine…

Martin’s lucky streak begins to unravel when Hannah suddenly goes missing, and he turns to a friend of a friend, Bobby, for help. Thrust into an underworld empire of corruption and half-truths, he learns his friend may not be who he thought she was.

In a shadowed world of deception, stalkers, and despicable drug dealers, Bobby and Martin must uncover the truth, and fast…

Several lives depend on it.

EXCERPT

Hannah asked questions quicker than she could find answers.

Why
do things happen? Where do they start? Why hadn’t the cyclist seen that
big pothole? Why had the van driver been so slow in reacting? Why did
the police leave the diversion in force for three whole days after the
accident? Why had she diverted down a side road when she could have
stayed in the queue? Whatever made her look to the left when she did?
Why had the car immediately caught her attention? Why did the sight of
that car bother her all next day? Why had she faithfully retraced that
convoluted route? Hadn’t she better things to do? Where had she found
the time? Why had she stopped and got out of her car? How did she know
it had to be his house? Why was she ringing the front door bell?

“Martin.”

It
came across as a question, a query, an exclamation of astonishment
because it was him, yet nothing like him. He had never been
good-looking, but his round face had always possessed an undercurrent of
charm that flickered through his eyes. Today, he was wearing old
fashioned Buddy Holly glasses that hid those eyes…

His
chestnut hair used to be carefully groomed but now hung in limp curls
bruised by swathes of grey. His face and body hung stringily around his
slack frame, and the smart designer clothing of yesteryear had been
replaced by second line charity shop wear. His appearance could be
summed up by a single word: defeated.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

It was a strange and twisting road that led to the publication of my first novel. From my humble beginnings, as an office clerk, to ownership of a multi-million dollar business I always maintained my love for literature.

Born and raised in Bristol, England. I spent most of my life in business, my companies turning over in the region of $500 million. The majority of that time marketing cars, eventually owning the largest Saab specialist in the world, before a bitter divorce forced me rethink my priorities. Particularly between 2003 and 2005 when I had to accept that I was no longer a millionaire but literally penniless. I avoided bankruptcy by the skin of my teeth and slowly rebuilt my life.

This led me to the life changing decision to leave the bustling city and move to live halfway up a mountain in the Welsh valleys. At the same time I started a part time six year English Literature course at Bristol University, and attended creative writing classes at Cardiff University. I left school at sixteen and this was my first taste of further education and an immense challenge.

I eventually adjusted my thinking to the academic life, and on 30 June 2015 had confirmation of my 2.1(Hons) degree from Bristol University. At the same time I also won the prestigious Hopkins Prize for my essay on Virginia Woolf and the unsaid within her text. Now the university courses are finished it will, with any luck, gives me plenty of extra time that I can devote to my fiction writing.

Thanks to the university experiences, my interest in English literature has flourished over recent years. Hopefully I have evolved as a writer from my earlier work in short stories (over ninety of them.) Although interestingly my first three novels have all been developed from a long forgotten short story.

Life is, once again, very good, and I live very happily halfway up a mountain, in the Welsh Valleys, with my wonderful partner Mari, and our rescue dog Wolfie.

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